Khalid. I’ve an emergency cabinet meeting. The press—” He broke off, jaw grinding hard, eyes glittering with unspeakable sorrow. “But I want to see them. I will meet you later.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
He nodded, staring blindly across the room. Silence stretched. Finally he spoke, his voice low and hoarse. “I thought he’d survive. I was sure he’d survive. I was sure …”
She swallowed around the knot filling her throat. “Maybe he did.”
Zayed shot her a sharp look. “You’re just as bad as I am.”
“Until they give you proof …?”
He shook his head, a short savage shake. “I clung to hope before. I won’t do it now. The disappointment is too severe.” He drew a breath, his chest rising, and then exhaled hard. “I’ll meet you for a late dinner. We’ll talk then. Bring the profiles.”
“Okay.”
And then he was gone.
For a moment she sat frozen in place, her mind reeling, her emotions chaotic. Sharif … Zayed … Sarq …
Her eyes burned and her throat felt raw and she didn’t know how long she sat there, but finally, the sound of footsteps in the hall roused her, and she turned as Manar appeared. “Your printer has arrived,” she said in her soft voice.
Rou had forgotten all about the printer, and wasn’t sure Zayed would even remember such a small unimportant detail when he had so much on his mind. But he had.
The printer wasn’t the only equipment that arrived. Zayed had also sent along a copier, another desk and reams of paper. Rou stood aside as the efficient staff assembled an office for her right before her eyes, creating an L-shaped work area for her, and then taping down extension cords onto the stone floor before disappearing.
She could still hear their retreating footsteps when she numbly sat down to print off the first ten profiles, and then she printed the next ten, just in case.
She worked without thinking, without feeling, worked just to stay busy. As she compiled the profiles as they emerged from the printer, her thoughts drifted to a former client, a difficult client. He was an American high-tech billionaire, and he believed first impressions were everything. He hated the first sixty head shots of the first sixty profiles she’d presented—no, no, no—but fell in love with sixty-one. He ended up marrying her and today they had three small children.
With her prep work complete, Rou still had several hours to fill. She took a nap, and then a long bath and after washing her hair she dressed again in the same gray suit she’d worn earlier. She didn’t have many choices, having brought only her small Vienna suitcase with her, but it was a good suit, she told herself, and Zayed wouldn’t care. Zayed wouldn’t even notice what she wore, anyway. To Zayed she was just a thing, an object, like the printer or copier now sitting on the desk.
After blow-drying her hair, Rou twisted it into another simple knot, and then slipped back on the same heels she’d worn in the morning. She applied no makeup; she never wore makeup, and rarely wore jewelry. She’d always prided herself on being sensible and practical, although a little part of her would have loved once—just once—to have been thought beautiful. To have maybe dazzled.
Manar arrived promptly at nine, bowed and asked Rou to come with her. Rou gathered her leather portfolio with the stack of profiles and followed Manar from her suite to a distant wing in the palace.
She was led to a small dining room softly lit by candles on the low table and in the oversize gold chandelier hanging above the table. Large, plump cushions in shades of blue were scattered on the floor around the table and the walls were covered in dark, carved screens. Above the chandelier the ceiling was domed and a dark midnight blue inlaid with bars of gold.
Manar bowed and left her, and Rou wandered around the room, studying the screen’s carvings of birds and flowers.
She’d nearly examined all the screens, and was just moving to the last when she turned her head and discovered Zayed in the doorway watching her.
She hadn’t realized he’d arrived and the surprise quickened her pulse, making her suddenly shy. “I didn’t hear you.”
He entered the room with that stealthy grace of his and in the candlelit room his hair gleamed onyx and his skin a burnished gold. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No. Just a few minutes. I was admiring the screens.”
He glanced at one of the ornate screens. “I like them, too. They’re one of my favorite antiques here in the palace. They’re Moroccan, and date from the sixteenth century. They were used in the harem as room dividers.”
“No wonder they’re so gorgeous,” she said lightly to cover her nervousness. “Beautiful ladies had to be surrounded by beautiful things.”
Zayed took a seat on the plump cushions before the table and gestured for her to join him on a pillow close to his. “Show me what you have.”
She sat carefully but awkwardly on the turquoise silk pillow he’d gestured to and blushed as her skirt rode up on her thighs. The hem wasn’t short but she also wasn’t used to showing a lot of leg, and she tried to hide her legs by opening the portfolio.
“These are the first ten profiles the program has matched you with,” she said, striving to sound brisk and professional. “Altogether I have thirty possibilities for you, but I only brought twenty profiles and you have them batched in groups of ten.”
She handed him the stack of photos with brief bios attached and watched as he silently leafed through them, reading the name, looking at each picture and then skimming the bio. He said nothing until he’d come to the end.
“Nothing?” she asked, prepared to give him the next ten.
“No. I can see there are definitely possibilities.”
“Good.” She tried to sound hearty and happy, but she wasn’t happy. She didn’t like doing this. And it was completely unreasonable, but she didn’t want him to like any of the women.
She wanted him to like her.
Which was horrible. Ridiculous. Impossible.
Impossible, she fiercely reminded herself as he handed the stack of ten back to her.
“Give me your expert opinion,” he said. “Pick out your three favorites from this group. Which are the top three you’d pick for me?”
Her hand shook ever so slightly as she smoothed the pages into a neat stack. “You want me to pick?”
“Three women you think would be perfect for me.”
She looked up at him, her heart thumping, her stomach churning like mad. “I can’t do that.”
His dark gold eyes bored into hers. “Why not?”
“I’m not you.”
“So?”
“I don’t have the same values or tastes. What I like isn’t what you’d like.”
